


The Sun Sets in SoCal

by LaVik



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28731894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaVik/pseuds/LaVik
Summary: Bobby's younger sister, Janie, returns to Los Angeles as a successful IT professional as Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang prepare for a showdown at All Valley, and Johnny realizes that even the most unexpected people are longing for a fresh start. And what better place than L.A.?
Relationships: Johnny Lawrence/Original Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

_A Few Months Prior_

"He looks so peaceful. That's what I'm supposed to say, right?"

Truth be told, Johnny Lawrence was not okay with seeing one of his best friends laying so peacefully in his casket because in life, this wasn't what Tommy was. He wasn't quiet and still. He was loud and lively and everything but this ... but that's what you were supposed to say at these things, and especially in front of Bobby, who seemed the most committed to being positive. Hopeful. Spiritual.

Johnny couldn't help but feel reflective - a strange feeling - and found himself spacing out in a pew on his own at the back of the chapel as others passed through to pay their respects. Tommy was gone. Had it really been that long ago that they had been in high school, on top of the world? And now, everything was different. Everything had changed.

Jumping slightly at the feeling of a hand on his shoulder, Johnny turned and got to his feet to see Bobby next to him, accompanied by a younger woman who looked only vaguely familiar, with round, expressive eyes much like Bobby's except brown in hue, and over the bridge of her nose, a light smattering of --

"Freckles! Holy shit," Johnny chuckled, scratching the back of his neck. "That you?"

"Told you he'd remember you," Bobby laughed, shaking his head as he gently nudged his younger sister. Janie Brown, a full eight years Bobby's junior, had been just a little girl when the guys had all been in high school, at the peak of the Cobra Kai and Miyago-Do rivalry. Bobby gave a grin as he looked back at Johnny. "It turns out Janie had a little crush on Tommy - her first crush, actually. They had a cute little moment when she went by to see him -"

"Alright, alright, no need to air out eight-year-old Janie's dirty laundry anymore," she laughed, rolling her eyes gently. "But it was nice. I'm glad I got to see him again. I feel like I saw all of you around way too much as a kid, I wasn't sure which ones of you lived at our house and which didn't."

"Well, it's not any of our fault that your mother cooked better than any of ours, teenage boy stomachs are black holes," Johnny smirked. "What are you doing these days?"

"Oh, I moved up north. I live in San Jose, I've been up there for a while but I'm looking to transfer," Janie supplied. "It's great, but it's not L.A."

"She works for Google," Bobby said, slinging an arm over his sister's shoulders and giving them a fond squeeze. "She went full nerd on us."

"The Google?" Johnny asked with a raise of his eyebrows. "So you... work for the Internet?"

"Something like that," Janie laughed, and something about the way her eyes changed when she smiled made it even more clear that she was Bobby's little sister - lent her a sort of familiarity that was unexpected for someone you hadn't interacted with in years.

"Well, hey, listen Freckles - if you move back into town and need anything, I owe your family for all your mom's dinners so you just say the word," Johnny shrugged. "It's good seeing ya. Maybe not under the circumstances but Tommy woulda liked that he gave the crew one more chance to pick on ya. Nerd."

"Yeah, looks like some things never change," Janie chuckled as Johnny reached out and gave her a fond one-armed hug. "It's good to see you again."

* * *

_Present Day_

In the months that passed after Tommy's death, Johnny found himself missing the presence of his old friend - having him around in the aftermath of losing the Cobra Kai dojo and having to start from scratch would have been a welcome reprieve.

With All Valley back on and his son in Kreese's clutches, Johnny admittedly more than welcomed whatever win he could get, even small ones, which he thought he had found with Carmen. But even that win, he realized, had come to be short-lived. The conversation hadn't been an angry one or one that placed them on bad terms. They had just quickly established that it would be the source of too many conflicts, and ultimately, not the right time or the right choice for either of them.

Johnny took a little pride in the fact that he wasn't a trainwreck and didn't revert to old ways of simply burning everything to the ground when something didn't go his way. He simply retreated into his routine, which tonight included a trip to the grocery store to restock on his favored Coors Banquet.

Johnny was throwing a few other necessities into his shopping cart when he saw a flash of dark hair and a side profile turning a corner into another aisle. Brow furrowing briefly, he followed a gut feeling and pushed his cart down to the end of the aisle a little faster, though not fast enough to gather anyone's attention, and caught a confirmatory glimpse of the familiar figure. Upon getting a good look at her face, it was unmistakable.

"Hey, Freckles!" he called out. "You lost or something?"

And sure enough, Janie Brown looked up from the box of cereal she was pulling from the shelf, realizing who had greeted her and grinning brightly.

"Well, look who it is," she chuckled, giving Johnny a fond one-armed hug. "Fancy meeting you here."


	2. Chapter 2

_"Fancy meeting you here."_

"In the middle of Albertson's, yeah, imagine that," Johnny chuckled as he reciprocated the younger woman's hug in greeting. "You're a long way from San Jose."

"I just started that new position I transferred into --"

"That's right, at the Google!" Johnny replied in realization, nodding for them to walk and talk as they pushed their carts down the remainder of the breakfast aisle and into the soda aisle, where Janie easily grabbed a case of Dr. Pepper and placed it down in her cart. "So you're back in town?"

"Staying in an apartment out here while I house hunt or something," Janie supplied. "They have me working out of the Playa Vista office so it's a little bit of a commute in the morning, but I figured it was better to stay somewhere a little more familiar while I get settled back in."

Something about Janie Brown, Johnny realized as they filled the rest of their mutual grocery run with pleasant small talk, felt refreshingly benign, so safely distant from the intense barrage of everything that had to do with karate in the valley.

It didn't evade his notice that she simply didn't need his help. She didn't pause waiting for him to help her put her groceries in the car, or to offer to put her cart back for her. She had the obvious air of someone used to simply doing things alone - not in a stubborn way, or in an 'I am woman, hear me roar' way. Just the familiar sort of force of habit that developed when you just didn't expect any help. Johnny knew it well. Janie Brown was, he could tell loud and clear, someone who just had grown so used to doing things by herself that she must have been deciding to keep it that way.

And, truth be told, with eyes like those and a smile like that - not that he was checking out his best friend's younger sister - Johnny found it hard to believe that a girl who looked like Janie would be alone for lack of options.

"So the moving van is supposed to come in this weekend, and I'm honestly just going to leave everything in the boxes for now," Janie rambled on. "No use really getting settled in if I'm just going to move out once I find something more permanent," she shrugged.

"Well, hey, I'm sure you're perfectly capable and you've got your brother and all, but I don't think he's gonna pray those boxes outta truck," Johnny joked, seeing the perfect opportunity to chip away at her insistence on being a lone wolf, even if just for the fun of it. "If you could maybe use a hand unloading your stuff, I've been told I'm pretty handy."

"Let's call it Saturday at eleven, I'll order pizza," Janie shrugged with a grin before reaching into her bag and pulling out her phone, holding it in his direction. "Type in your number. I'll text you my address."

"This is how the kids tell each other about house parties these days, right?" Johnny smirked as he fumbled through getting his digits into Janie's phone. "I'll be there with reinforcements, so... maybe make it a couple pizzas."

"Friends of yours and Bobby's are friends of mine. I'll even get the pepperoni. No plain cheese for VIP's," Janie laughed as she took her phone back. "But hey, I have to cut and run, I got laundry in the dryer for work tomorrow. Slim pickings until my stuff comes in. See you Saturday!"

* * *

And when Saturday inevitably came, Johnny wasn't sure why he felt fairly excited that he managed to get Daniel to agree to giving the kids a break from training to get Janie moved into her apartment, though she looked rather surprised to see a small posse roll up to move her things in at record speed.

Even Daniel remembered Janie vaguely, only in passing, in the way one had general ideas about the lives of the people they went to school with. He knew that Bobby had a little sister because he had seen her in the past, a tiny girl in the stands at All Valley. His initial response was a wistful chuckle that even these vague figures from the past were grown now - time truly had flown.

"So, Google," Daniel said, nodding in approval as he helped himself to some of the pizza that had only just been delivered.

" _The_ Google," Janie replied matter-of-factly, shooting Johnny a good-natured smirk. "Yeah, Cloud Infrastructure Engineer."

"Damn --"

"It sounds fancy," Janie said with a dismissive wave. "I work on the Professional Services team, so I really just work with clients to get their data and everything hosted on Google servers. In the cloud," she explained, having clearly given 'the talk' more than once.

"So you might be working with us!" Daniel said with an enthusiastic gesture, nearly dropping his pizza. "My wife and I, we're transitioning the dealerships to the cloud and I think she mentioned we had a call with someone from Google that we're trying to get on the books."

"Well, there's a good chance that it's me," Janie laughed before taking a bite of her own pizza. 

"Gonna be honest, I let her stop at the Google when I asked what she did," Johnny laughed, helping himself to pizza as well as they all glanced over at the kids finishing up with placing the boxes in the appropriate rooms.

The record speed at which it all got done was, to Janie anyway, astonishing, and she was sure Bobby would get a kick out of it when she told him how Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso had both agreed on bringing a handful of both of their students out just to lug boxes into her new apartment. Ensuring that she had pushed all of them into taking pizza to go so she wouldn't need to worry about leftovers, she saw to it that they at least knew how much their help was appreciated getting her settled back into town.

Janie Brown had left Los Angeles some time ago, thinking that moving up North was her forever move. It was funny, she realized sadly, how when you were young a lot of things seem like a good idea, and looking back down the line, you had to wonder why. But life had brought her back to L.A. for whatever reason, or maybe for no reason at all, and this time - after everything she had been through since leaving - she was determined for things to be okay.

The next day, Sunday, she was surprised to wake up to her phone ringing and her brow furrowed in confusion at te realization that it was Johnny Lawrence's name on the caller ID. "Hello?" she answered hesitantly.

"Hey, Freckles," he said with an unusually nervous laugh. "Listen, uh - I need to ask you something."

"You... you-- huh?" Janie asked, shaking her head slightly in confusion. "Sure, what's up?"

"So, don't laugh. I just need to know..." Johnny said, clearly hesitating. "...what's a spam?"

"Excuse me?" Janie asked. "You mean - on your computer? Do not open it, Johnny. Don't --"

"Is it bad?"

"Do not click on it," Janie repeated. "Can you Facetime me what you're seeing?"

"Facewhat?"

"Never mind," Janie groaned in exasperation. "What's your address? I'll come take a look."


End file.
